Why was World of Warcraft dumbed down that much?

[Ausr]

I like the simplicity of WoW. It's one of the reasons I loved this game from the moment I set foot in Azeroth, in early 2005.

What bothers me is that Blizzard has taken away one of the other aspects I loved; The social one. It's a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG where you don't even have to, or barely even get the chance to interact with other players. It's basically a singleplayer game in a world made for huge amounts of people.

All of my old friends have quit the game, and nowadays I have no choice but to play alone. Call me pathetic, but this is how it is. Sure, I've jumped between a few guilds every now and then but since nothing in the game requires or even promotes teamwork, the guild is nothing more than a glorified chatroom to hang in while you do your dailies all by yourself.
Don't get me wrong, MoP is a good expansion. The raids have been amazing this far, and I love the environments in Pandaria. That isn't the problem however, the problem is that you have no one to enjoy these things with anymore.

Rose-tinted goggles and expansion nostalgia aside, but I miss having to talk to other players to set something up. Be it raids, groups or even events. I miss faction- and server rivalry, and even the guild rivalry. I miss the sense of community. Group quests were awesome too. All of this is slowly being removed from the game, and it's frankly making me sad. Nothing you do seems to matter anymore, you just log in and do your dailies and maybe a LFR or two where no one says 2 words during the entire run, before logging out.

Meh, maybe it's just me.

Or... you could make social interactions by yourself and not blame Blizzard for something they never did.

[Tharkkun]

Or you started playing after Wrath...then its not because your stupid, its because you were never forced to actually LEARN anything other then how to aoe and tunnel on a boss and LFR only encourages this mentality

There's a 4 year period between Wrath and LFR, two expansions as well. If you haven't been tasked with doing those things then maybe you should step out of the 5 mans. LFR doesn't encourage anything. Lazy players will be lazy.

LFR also consists of the majority of players who can't get in a normal raid yet you expect them to be amazing? I bet you will be upset when Flex raids are too hard for you in 5.4.

[Magpai]

The game appeals to more skill levels. It's not "dumbed down", you just have to be smart about seeking challenges.

Anyone who says the game is "dumbed down" and hasn't killed everything on heroic is full of shit.

[Tharkkun]

Nor should he need to. Less than 5% of a games content being hard doesn't make the game itself difficult.

The current expansion contains quite a bigger percentage of content than 5%. Content prior to level 85 is invalidated at this point. If you choose not to take the plunge into it you're telling Blizzard you're content with the current difficulty.

[Paulosio]

I don't see what the problem is what with being given explanations as to how the game works. I mean, I read the instruction manual for a new TV or my new microwave too before I use it. What's so wrong with WoW giving people information as to what to do? Apparently, it still doesn't give ENOUGH information, seeing as how many complaints about bad players we usually get on the forums.

The information is there. If people don't read it then there's not much else that can be done. You can't force people to learn.

[Rayaleith]

@OP

You sound like you think old wow was a mental challenge :S Well... wow was never ever hard. It was more grindy, yes, but hard?

[thewallofsleep]

What is the point of this thread? What are you hoping to achieve by posting it here? If these things bug you so much, you could either post this on the official forums where someone of consequence may review it, or you can stop playing. No one is forcing you to subscribe to and play the game month after month.

[Csnyder]

then quit playing, easy as that but you seem like the type who has to complain to get the attention in life you seek
sad

[nekobaka]

You know I just skimmed through it so I'm just going to put this out there which is simple ''Money'' Casuals which isn't a bad thing mind you are most of the majority of this game thus they have to make it more attractive to the well people who don't exactly have time to commit to hardcore / Semi-HC shit. It's been this way since Woltk and It's not going to change in fact It's going to get even more so called ''EZ'' or w/e you think it is.

Just because I cant commit time to a raiding guild doesnt mean I cant get out of the fire or be a team player that will push a CC button. All non-raiding options for engaging content for a casual time table pale in gear progression compared to LFR which could be compared to LFR in regards to effort.

[Scathbais]

<snip> Most of this is not worth responding to, but a few tidbits were worth a chuckle or two.

Spell tooltips showing you when to use your spells, how to use them and in what kind of scenario.

And in-game instructions explaining how to play is bad why? The alternative is you go to the class specific forum and look it up there.

Talent trees. Seriously, what is this? I feel like I am in a game for 6 year olds when I look at this. Could they have dumbed it down anymore? I feel like the next step is merely choosing what spec you want, and I expect that change to happen in a few months time.

Regardless of 6 talent points or 41, there is still very little variation in talent choices. Again, you go to the internet, look up the best talent selection and the one or two acceptable variations.

You comment about how the 6-tier talent system is dumbed down means you just don't get it. I will try to explain it. Each spec/class is given the tools (spells/abilities) needed to play the class effectively. Talents are choices that can be easily changed according to the demands of an encounter or your particular play style. Simple as that. In some cases the talent choices don't matter or only matter to PvP. In other cases talent choices provide extra survivability, utility, or outright dps for a particular encounter. It is as simple as that. Simple does not mean inelegant or that we don't have meaningful choices.

Raids. The LFR is a great example of this, instant gratification with absolutely no commitment required. No preparation required, no need to know what the bosses do, no nothing. Just go in, spam 3-4 buttons and you're done.

LFR is targeted at non-raiders. What they do in LFR really has no impact on you or the enjoyment you get out of playing wow. At least it SHOULDN'T have any impact on you. There are still Normal and Heroic raids. Why do you care?

They're making this game boring and disappointing to those of a mediocre intelligence level

Well sorry you of mediocre intelligence are bored and disappointed. Those of us with above average intelligence still enjoy the game tremendously.

In the end they are losing the quality players.

I challenge you to find a causal relationship between anything you stated above and the supposed loss of quality players.

The game today feels as though every cheat possible has been turned on. Warlocks are vastly different to the one I rolled all those years ago.

Vastly different and vastly improved

WoW feels like a game with GODMODE enabled. that is hardly compelling or enticing.

You base this on the fact that ever guild has already cleared 13/13H? Oh wait, that hasn't happened. Not by a long shot.

[Deleted]

I think Blizzard are trying to fix that.

Brawlers guild and outdoor elite bosses - many one shot mechanics that can't be outgeared, resulting in challenging content.
Flex raids that are harder than LFR - new version of good old raid pugging, but without ability to ninja loot stuff or loot whoring.
Heroic scenarios not available in LFD - trying to help communities.

Everything that was messed up, was done during Cataclysm. Worst expansion ever. Unfortunately some things, like linear dumbed down questing and split leveling instances into short 5 mins aoe fests can't be fixed

P.S. I strongly disagree with talents. New system is amazing, way better than old system of mandatory cookie cutter choices. I don't understand how could anyone miss old system.

[Vakna]

What you call dumbed down are actually Quality of Life changes that all companies carry out over the course of a products lifetime to ensure it's continued success.

Please never put yourself in a position of product responsibility, it will save you an almost certain colossal failure.

[Manhands]

I have an issue or counter-comment for pretty much every point in the OP. Others are doing a fair job of debating those points, so I'll save you the lengthy post. More than that, though, the tone of the post is so...inaccessible. There was no, "I feel this way, what do others think?" or even "This might be a perception issue, but...". Instead, opinions and perceptions were written as absolute fact (which they are most certainly not).

Don't just slap a bunch of opinions down, call it Truth, and warn us all that we all need to listen to your warnings or face WoW's apocalypse. The reasons people disagree are just as valid.

[Rupture91]

Link your 13/13 h character or this is a pointless thread. Raid bosses are harder than ever due to many more complex raid mechanics. Nostalgia is great but don't try to act like content was harder back in the day when bosses only had 3 mechanics at most to watch for. Even class rotations are 10x harder than what they use to be. Spamming 1 button back in the day was tons of fun huh lol

[Nobleshield]

Why? To make it more appealing. Now I didn't bother to read the OP (sorry, too many QQ threads start out the same way. Forgive me if I dismissed yours as another one) but why do people continue to spout out this fallacy that complexity is somehow better than elegant simplicity? It's not. Complexity doesn't do anything but add extra layers and appeal to the very very small minority if people who want a "skill gap" so they can show how elite they are compared to the average people.

The game is better now than it was, and still could use a good dose of what you would call it "dumbing down" (or as the rest of us would call it, simplification) because it's STILL too complex and convoluted. I'd rather have a game that gave everyone 10 abilities that were well-thought out and made sense than 50 abilities that didn't just so some math nerd can number crunch and eke out a .05342% difference and therefore feel superior to everyone else.

[Zaqwert]

Welcome to gaming for the masses in 2013. It's not just WoW sadly, it's all games designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Did you play D3 by any chance? They basically streamlined all the areas so it was impossible to get lost, there was a big blinking arrow always telling you where to go, big orange blinking lights telling you where the quest items where, all mood was ruined by the bosses constantly popping up and telling you exactly where to go and what to do next.

Game makers fear that if they require any sort of thought or effort it will scare off too many stupid people from their game.

[KrazyK923]

Suggesting "getting rid of useless filler" means "dumbing down."

False premise to begin with.

Thread fails.

[Zaqwert]

Lots of overly defensive people ITT.

You can be a fan of WoW and admit it's gotten steamlined and dumbed down to a degree. It's just the direction gaming has gone as it's gone mainstream.

I'm sure everyone has seen this little joke:



Games are now for "everyone" and eveyrone includes 5 year olds who can't read and 85 year olds who have never booted up a PC.

Game developers want to cast as wide a net as possible and that means often the quality of the game is compromised as to not "scare off" too many buffons.

It's not an attack on WoW, it's just the sad state of the industry.

---------- Post added 2013-06-24 at 04:05 PM ----------

"Quality of life" improvements can destroy a game.

Let's say hypothetically Blizzard put in a feature where you could instantly warp anywhere in the world whenever you wanted.

Would it be a quality of life improvement? Sure would, I mean, travel time is just filler after all, nobody plays the game to travel, however would such a feature destroy the game? Sure would.

You keep removing "filler" and streamlining stuff and simplifying, eventually you've fundamentally changed the game.

[ComputerNerd]

The old talent system required planning in advance, some fixed and completely mandatory options and in the earlier versions would require some horrible choices simply because it was a requirement for a later better one.
The removal of the fixed routes later at least helped, but still generally meant the vast majority of the points were pre-determined and without choice.

The current system is a vast improvement, but being held back by the talents themselves and not the framework.
In any given tier there is the possibility for one talent which is simply superior, one that is absolutely awful.
Do not blame the framework for that, holding up the old system as some vast improvement, when that showed the same problem way more often.

Longer term players cannot give a fair and unbiased opinion on how the content prior to end-game raiding has been in difficulty, simply because their experience and knowledge be will different from someone playing for the first time, experiencing something for the first time.

It is an arrogant belief that the game must constantly cater to the experienced, to them and be an ever increasing learning curve.

The small participation and progression in heroic raiding content shows that the difficulty is about what the elitists think it should be, despite them being ignorant of that and complaining about everything else.

Getting to end-game, levelling or the progression curve to the current end-game simply has to be similar in difficulty as it increases in length.
It simply cannot grow endlessly in length, being biased towards those who were there at the start and penalising anyone who was not.

[Forebode]

People had the same complaint about wrath of the lich king.
They heard peoples cries and stepped it up at the start of cata. People complained it was too much.

I will not completely disagree with you however; I dropped pve completely. With that said I have to comment on your
playing with godmode on reference. Have you tried pvp? You die faster than Rosie Odonnel's shower tiles!

All in good fun Take it easy